ZORA NEALE HURSTON

She was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold of the sun and the panting breath of the breeze when the inaudible voice of it all came to her . . .When sixteen-year-old Janie is caught kissing shiftless Johnny Taylor, her grandmother swiftly marries her off to an old man with sixty acres. Janie endures two stifling marriages before she finally meets the man of her dreams - who offers not diamonds, but a packet of flowering seeds.Their Eyes Were Watching God is one of the very greatest American novels of the 20th century. It is so lyrical it should be sentimental it is so passionate it should be overwrought, but it is instead a rigorous, convincing and dazzling piece of prose, as emotionally satisfying as it is impressive. There is no novel I love more - Zadie Smith Books included in the VMC 40th anniversary series include: Frost in May by Antonia White The Collected Stories of Grace Paley Fire from Heaven by Mary Renault The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter The Weather in the Streets by Rosamond Lehmann Deep Water by Patricia Highsmith The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West Their Eyes Were Watching God

En 1927, la jeune anthropologue rencontre en Alabama Cudjo Lewis, qui, à 86 ans, était l'ultime survivant du dernier convoi négrier ayant quitté les côtes du Dahomey pour l'Amérique. Après avoir recu

In 1927, Zora Neale Hurston went to Plateau, Alabama, just outside Mobile, to interview eighty-six-year-old Cudjo Lewis. Of the millions of men, women, and children transported from Africa to America as slaves, Cudjo was then the only person alive to tell the story of this integral part of the nations history. Hurston was there to record Cudjos firsthand account of the raid that led to his capture and bondage fifty years after the Atlantic slave trade was outlawed in the United States.In 1931, Hurston returned to Plateau, the African-centric community three miles from Mobile founded by Cudjo and other former slaves from his ship. Spending more than three months there, she talked in depth with Cudjo about the details of his life. During those weeks, the young writer and the elderly formerly enslaved man ate peaches and watermelon that grew in the backyard and talked about Cudjos pastmemories from his childhood in Africa, the horrors of being captured and held in a barracoon for selection by American slavers, the harrowing experience of the Middle Passage packed with more than 100 other souls aboard the Clotilda, and the years he spent in slavery until the end of the Civil War.Based on those interviews, featuring Cudjos unique vernacular, and written from Hurstons perspective with the compassion and singular style that have made her one of the preeminent American authors of the twentieth-century, Barracoon masterfully illustrates the tragedy of slavery and of one life forever defined by it. Offering insight into the pernicious legacy that continues to haunt us all, black and white, this poignant and powerful work is an invaluable contribution to our shared history and culture.

Cover design by Harlem renaissance artist Lois Mailou Jones When Janie, at sixteen, is caught kissing shiftless Johnny Taylor, her grandmother swiftly marries her off to an old man with sixty acres. Janie endures two stifling marriages before meeting the man of her dreams, who offers not diamonds, but a packet of flowering seeds ...'For me, THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD is one of the very greatest American novels of the 20th century. It is so lyrical it should be sentimental; it is so passionate it should be overwrought, but it is instead a rigorous, convincing and dazzling piece of prose, as emotionally satisfying as it is impressive. There is no novel I love more' Zadie Smith 'One of the greatest writers of our time' Toni Morrison

This vibrant first novel by Zora Neale Hurston, one of the most influential African-American writers, is reissued with a new introduction by Jesmyn Ward.

* Zora Neale Hurstons masterpiece is perhaps the most widely read and highly regarded novel in the entire canon of African American literature.

Publicado por primeira vez em 1937, um dos livros mais celebrados de Zora Neale Hurston, é hoje considerado unanimemente pola crítica um clássico da literatura afroamericana e o romance pioneiro no tratamento literario do preto como um ser humano completo, complexo e nom diminuido. E a historia de Janie Mae Crawford, heroina deste romance, simbolo privilegiado da negritude feminina.Traducçom do ingles de Elvira Souto.